Chinese President Xi Jinping sees the New Year as crucial to achieving the country's goal of creating a "moderately prosperous society" by 2020.
As such, the national rural vitalization strategy, a key plank of the nation's economic modernization push, should be well implemented, he told a two-day rural work conference which ended on Saturday.
President Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, gave directives on work related to agriculture, rural areas and rural people.
"Rural vitalization" was one of the major aspects of developing a modernized economy in the Chinese president's report to the 19th CPC National Congress in October 2017.
While pursuing the strategy, the country must follow the Party's leadership on rural work and prioritize agriculture and rural areas, he said.
Xi hailed new achievements that were made in agricultural and rural development in 2018, noting that good work in rural areas will help to ensure sustained and sound economic development and overall social stability.
He called for more efforts to deepen supply-side structural reform in agriculture, win the battle against poverty and promote a new round of rural reform.
Rural work is crucial in 2019, a key year for the country to achieve its aim of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020, Xi noted.
Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with representatives of model agricultural workers and excellent workers before the central rural work conference held in Beijing, December 28-29, 2018. /Xinhua Photo
China should strengthen rural infrastructure and public services and give better play to the role of farmers, he said, noting that new steps should be taken toward agricultural and rural modernization.
Premier Li Keqiang also called for improvements in the living conditions of special groups in poverty-stricken areas and the consolidation and expansion of achievements in poverty alleviation.
The structure of agriculture should be optimized by pursuing high-quality and green development with special features, Premier Li stressed.
China, he added, should foster new drivers powering agricultural and rural development and support talented people to return home for innovation and entrepreneurship.
The central rural work conference was held in Beijing on Friday and Saturday to exchange experiences in implementing rural vitalization strategies and to deploy agricultural and rural work in 2019.
Promoting more balanced growth
Measures prioritizing agricultural and rural development were also discussed. Chinese officials vowed to carry on implementing government plans for rural vitalization at the conference.
Improvement is needed in multiple areas, including talent support, industry development, land use management, stable investment guarantees and creating a pleasant living environment.
China's rural conditions reflect the country's overall economic and social development. But it's also in the countryside that unbalanced and insufficient growth is most glaring.
"When we talk about farmers, villages and agriculture, the mindset should go beyond the relationship between the three. We should view it from a broader perspective. We should consider the distribution of national income, public administration and governance mechanisms,” said Zhang Xiaoshan, director of the Rural Development Institute, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
China is entering the home stretch of its ambitious goal to lift all of the nation's impoverished people out of poverty by 2020. Much of this work will focus on helping those living in rural China. The central government is expected to continue its work on establishing a long-term poverty alleviation plan, which remains a challenge.
China has pledged to lift another 10 million rural residents out of poverty in 2019, the same number as this year.
"We need to develop industries and boost employment. More than two million impoverished people found jobs in the past year, all migrant workers. In addition to that, we built 30,000 workshops in rural areas, which provided more than 700,000 job opportunities,” said Liu Yongfu, director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.
China is committed to fostering new business entities such as household farms and farmer cooperatives by helping them solve production and operational difficulties that may arise.
(CGTN's Zhao Yunfei and Wang Peng contributed to the story.)